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Changing diet helps avoid mosquito bites
Each summer supermarkets fill their shelves with the many and varied ways of avoiding mosquito bites – whether it is a spray for clothing, an electric machine using tablets or fluid of that old stand-by, flypaper.
Now a dermatologist says a simple diet change can give as much benefit or more as it can prevent the main ways mosquitoes choose their targets, which is by the CO2 people exhale and the heat of their bodies.
Dr Paul Dupont in Toulouse, author of Soigner sa peau au naturel, says diet changes can make people less of a target.
“Avoiding eating spicy foods will help because spice heats us up and that, along with the CO2, creates a target for the mosquito. On the other side of this, foods that cool us help make us less of a target.
“Eating lots of meat makes the sweat smell stronger – attracting mosquitoes – so in summer we should be eating more vegetables and fruit to lessen the attraction.
“We should make sure we are not lacking in vitamin B as this is repulsive for mosquitoes.”
Fresh and dried fruit, peas, eggs, wholegrain breads and liver are sources of vitamin B.
“Drinking tisanes improves how our bodies absorb food to cut down on the CO2 in sweat.
“In the Hippocratic tradition bitter plants such as rosemary (romarin), milk thistle (chardon-Marie) have a beneficial effect. It is not a repulsive but it is the opposite of spices.”
